By Harry Cole, Deputy Political Editor For The Mail On Sunday
Published: 23:59 GMT, 16 March 2019 | Updated: 00:11 GMT, 17 March 2019
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Tory leadership contender Liz Truss has launched an extraordinary attack on her Cabinet rivals, branding them ‘vultures’ trying to appease ‘Left-wing whingers’ with big spending pledges.
Amid growing division within the Cabinet over Brexit ‘wrecking’, the Treasury Minister let rip at her ‘endless colleagues asking for spending on this that or the other’.
In a speech described as ‘the starting gun on the leadership election’, the South West Norfolk MP declared the Conservatives must slash taxes and be radical if they want any hope of winning the next Election.
And she took aim at the policies of her rivals for the Tory crown, including Chancellor Philip Hammond and Business Secretary Greg Clark.
Liz Truss (pictured above) is said to have torn into Cabinet 'vultures'
Speaking at a Westminster dinner on Wednesday, Ms Truss pleaded for an injection of ‘va va voom into the DNA of the Conservative Parliamentary Party because I am afraid the ratio of my colleagues talking about increasing spending to cutting taxes is not good’. And the Treasury Chief Secretary accused Tory MPs of being ‘ashamed’ to call for fiscal responsibility because they were afraid of losing the next Election to Jeremy Corbyn.
In the most open pitch for the leadership by a serving Cabinet Minister yet, Ms Truss said: ‘So what do we need to stand for? First of all we have to be the party of lower taxes.
‘And the reality is we have a 50-year high in terms of tax burden. Now I do not think we can go into the next Election in that position. We need to lower our taxes.’
Britain's Chief Secretary to the Treasury Liz Truss (L) Britain's Business Secretary Greg Clark (C) and Britain's Work and Pensions Secretary Amber Rudd leave a cabinet meeting in Downing Street central London
Her speech came amid a week of feverish plotting by Ministers jostling to replace Theresa May as soon as this summer. Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson was spotted conspiring with Welsh Secretary Alun Cairns and allies over a late-night fast-food meal on Tuesday, in what one MP branded ‘the Byron Burger betrayal’.
Sources say that former Chief Whip Mr Williamson – who helped Mrs May become Prime Minister – has ‘concluded she is toast’ and has begun ‘crunching the numbers for who is next’. But so far only Ms Truss has been so public with her ambitions, with one Minister accusing her of ‘firing the starting gun on the race’ with Wednesday’s speech.
Addressing over 120 Ministers, MPs and other Westminster figures celebrating the 15th anniversary of the grassroots TaxPayers’ Alliance campaign, she went on: ‘In too many cases we have been a bit too ashamed of being Conservatives, ashamed of being free marketeers and ashamed of being in favour of low taxes.’
